Iran Escalation (26)

Tehran’s delusions appear to grow by the day. There appears to a belief that Iran could easily survive a contemporary air campaign, despite the reality that the US can deliver both deep penetrating PGMs like the MOP,or in a single pass, a large number of smaller PGMs with individual DMPIs. This is not 1991, or 1999, or 2004 – the world has changed in ways they evidently cannot comprehend.

Excellent WashEx essay on the enormous revenue generating empire owned by the theocracy, and how it insulates them from the misery of the general population. Tehran plays the Europeans for what it is worth. Iranians turn to bitcoin to avoid collapsed currency. AUS PM may join coalition campaign against Tehran.

Facing immense pressure at home for his inability to respond in kind to Iran’s downing of an intruding US spy drone last week, Trump said in a Twitter rant on Tuesday that Tehran will be met with “obliteration” if it ever attacks “anything American.” Speaking to CNN on Wednesday, Zarif downplayed Trump’s remarks and said Washington was “incapable” of acting on such threats. “He’s certainly wrong,” Zarif said. “But that statement indicates that the United States’ intentions are certainly illegal.” “The United States is not in a position to obliterate Iran, they do not have the capability other than using prohibited weapons to do this,” he added. “I think President Trump should remember that we don’t live in the 18th century,” the top diplomat noted. “There is a United Nations charter and threat of force is illegal.” Last Thursday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) downed a US Navy RQ-4A drone inside the Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf. Trump said the following day that he had initially authorized airstrikes against three targets in Iran but called them off 10 minutes before launch. Had it been a “manned” aircraft, his response would have been different, he said then. This is not the first time that the Trump administration is threatening Iran with military action as a result of heightened tensions between the two sides over the past few weeks. Trump stepped up his anti-Iran rhetoric after pulling out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May last year and immediately launching a campaign of “maximum pressure” to force Tehran into negotiations on its ballistic missile program and growing regional influence. In addition to several rounds of sanctions that target Iran’s economy, most notably it’s oil exports, Trump has also sent troops and military equipment to the Persian Gulf region to counter what it calls “threats” from Tehran. It has also blamed a series of mysterious tanker attacks in the Sea of Oman to Iran without providing any evidence. In its latest provocative move, the US imposed a series of bizarre sanctions that targeted Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian military commanders. The Trump administration is also set to introduce sanctions against Zarif in the coming days. Zarif on Wednesday called the latest sanctions an “additional insult by the United States against the entire Iranian nation.”

The Trump administration’s latest sanctions against Iran reinstate an embargo on some of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s front companies that President Barack Obama lifted as part of the nuclear deal and could further expose the Iranian dictator’s corrupt economic empire.

World powers will warn Iran to stick to the terms of their nuclear deal when they meet on Friday for “last chance” talks, but with Tehran feeling the pressure from punishing U.S. sanctions expectations of saving the 2015 accord are low, diplomats say.

Iranian authorities have seized about 1,000 bitcoin mining machines in two abandoned factories, state television reported, after warnings that the activity had led to a spike in consumption of government-subsidized electricity.

Al Jazeera English Published on Jun 26, 2019 The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates says there is not enough evidence to suggest Iran carried out recent attacks on oil tankers in and around Gulf waters. His comments came during a visit to Moscow where Russia’s top diplomat showed strong support for allies in Tehran. Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi has more from the Iranian capital.

Trump threatened Iran with “overwhelming force” if it attacks “anything American.” But some lawmakers say a war with Iran would be a prolonged conflict – precisely the kind of “endless war” Trump campaigned against.

DONALD TRUMP has significantly ramped up tensions with Iran since he took office in 2017, ditching a nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama and imposing sanctions on the country. His latest batch of sanctions may have been devised to avoid military conflict.